Declined. A paladin with ADPS works perfectly fine as a healer to support an SK, and works great to support a warrior. Him tanking on his paladin and having poor results doesn't change that. To the OP, I'm not sure what you're doing, but if you're boxing a paladin and SK, why would you tank on the paladin?
Paladin / Mage / Bard is my setup. I alternate between 2 Healer Mercs + 1 Rogue Merc and 3 Healer Mercs depending on the situation (mainly because mercs are semi-horrible and I'm semi-lazy). The biggest thing is to use the Harmonious line of spells - the merc healers will hit you with non-stop single target heals which triggers the group heal - it keeps everyone in the group topped off. I prefer the mage air pet as a back up tank + the stuns cut down on incoming damage. I leave pet taunt on and either let the aggro bounce back and forth or the pet tanks things. The bard is mostly just /melody all of it's chants + war march + etc... and auto-attack which lets me alternate my focus between the mage and paladin. I can use 2 rogue mercs and 1 healer merc if I actually pay attention - I really am lazy when I box by myself though and the 2nd healer merc is because 1 of them is dead far too often for my own comfort. I do very little DPS with the Paladin though and would be far better off with an SK but I've had the Paladin since 1999, so it's who I am in EQ if that makes sense. I can currently box 3 of the 4 NoS missions (door, bridge and mean streets) with this setup. I am close on the spirit mission but have issues with the gum-drop adds (apparently I always kill the one lesser lethargy too slowly and then things go bad for me when I get the root + DA or whatever) Haven't met a named mob that causes issues unless I'm being lazy or I do something really stupid.
Declined what? As I said and you seemed to ignore, I could box 6 paladins and it would work perfectly fine but it would still be stupid to do that. Boxing a shammy for heals is 1,000 x better than boxing a paladin for heals and thats indisputable.
Pretty much this expansion I have ran with a Shaman healer. I prefer that over a cleric. Even though clerics are fine also, just it seems shamans bring more to the table.
I agree with couple posters: 1) If your Pally is more spammy than the SK you are likely leaving DPS on the SK go to waste, an SK should always have 1 of 4 lifetaps on cooldown, not including Bite or Namdrows. In addition keeping your DoTs going, and all your activated abilities. 2) Tanking on an SK is easier mode for sure. Certainly easier than Paladin tanking. Taps refresh faster, do dmg at the same time, and heal for a significant enough amout to mainly keep the SK alive. 3) If you box 2 knights, your DPS isn't great, don't box 2 knights for the DPS. Box 2 knights and use 1 as a backup incase the main goes down with the bonus being mediocre at best DPS boost.
Declined to be ashamed. A paladin healer works fine, a six box of paladins would be trash. An sk/brd/sha group is only like, 25% better than sk/brd/pal, if played by a modest boxer, not the 10,000% you're estimating. Everyone has their own preferences for class makeup and if the community ignored them and just gave the same recommendation it'd be boring, callous and unhelpful.
If I could kill truly 25% faster with sk/bard/sha (very believable), then that is in standard forum hyperbole math, easily 104,824% better than swapping the shaman for a second tank who doesn't really do anything well as a second or third box except dps undead, especially when you've killed 4687 shadeweaver non undead placeholders in a row and you just want the mobs to die please, please just 5% faster. Maedhros really underestimated the difference. Both knights take active button mashing and 2hander riposting to shine imo. Both combos have less than .0001% of the power of a sk/bard/druid team tho tbh.
It's not so much that. SK passive healing from their buffs and AA are just so much (2x, 3x, 4x?) stronger then that of the paladin. A paladin has to actively heal more to tank as well and so is more spammy against fewer mobs, and hits their tanking limits against lesser mobs as well.
I can see that, SK AA give a tremendous amount of passive taps, would I say 2-4x more than a Paladin all other things considered. No clue our taps/AA are kind of convoluted. But yes SK healing is much much more passive than I dare say any other class.
Auto attack on a Paladin and on an SK. See how long each lives. See who has the aggro. And see who is laying on the ground like a warrior.
Aye exactly. Self buffs only to really showcase SK >> Pal > War and it's not even that close between the two knights.
That's one of the big things that surprised me after playing a shadowknight. I thought it was mostly casted lifetaps, lich sting and maybe a passive life tap proc or two. Instead, every time my sk takes a breath of air he procs a half dozen different lifeleech abilities. Conversely, paladins just don't have the depth of passiveish heal procs.
Sk has been my main since 2003 with zero breaks. I keep 2 lifetaps memmed on my spell bar , zero terrors , 3 mini buffs (last shorter than 18 mins) and the rest are dotts. There are AA ae aggro and other ways to self heal that do not take up spell gems. I take grief for this from time to time from other sk but hey thats how I play. In my box set and it works. Like I said before I am hardly on my Sk while boxing. I absolutely love what Tucoh added before "Everyone has their own preferences for class makeup and if the community ignored them and just gave the same recommendation it'd be boring, callous and unhelpful."
I'm still new to SKs but I found myself using more DoTs as my skill and gear/aas increase, but still only got to 3. Keeping 3x DoTs running on 4 mobs makes it a substantial part of my damage now, even if it's more work than just focusing on one mob.
If you have the adps, 2 tank groups are fine. Especially if you go undead area and then the paladin turns into great dps lol
I experimented with debuff and dot lineups too, i.e the class's design direction between levels 1-66, and settled on 3 lifetaps based on cool downs and gifts. The Heart Flutter line is the only melee debuff (not counting darkness) that continues post level 60 with a renaissance starting at level 85. Class design twists and turns are evident throughout. SK allows several good play styles both as main and afk/box.
Hes running SK, pal, bard and monk. That adps is pretty poor. And his 3 other melee toons will be eating up a lot of the kill-shots. SK, bard, Monk and shammy would be so much better. Even against undead. Saying its fine is the same as saying it isnt good. You know, like SK, Bard, Monk and shammy would be.
My understanding is that the Main Tank designation prioritizes merc healing. The SHD is doing a lot of self helaing. Try setting your BRD as MT and see what happens.
Side note, I started setting my DRU as Main Tank and then on my SHD Xtar, I put a slot as Main tank Target. Now I can always see on my SHD window who my DRU is targeting. This has made boxing a healer much easier. An older trick I used to use was to set my Xtar on my CLR to match the group layout of my ENC. Then I could use the heal hotkeys that coordinated with my ENC group window. I still have the ENC, but I swapped the CLR for the SHD and am watching the SHD window. The SHD doesn't lose aggro like the tank merc did so I don't really need that healing trick anymore. Another side note, CLR merc healing is great but the AI is trash, too slow, would just let my SHD die. Never planned on adding a 4th box but 2 CLR merc would just let my SHD die. DRU is now the reactive healer, but wow do druids suck at healing compared to clerics. It's shockingly bad.
